January 17, 2012

Prior to hearing Smoke Ring for My Halo in full, the two Kurt Vile songs I came across via numerous blogs were “In My Time” and “Jesus Freaks.” Perhaps not coincidentally, these are the two most upbeat tracks on the album, and the two most focused. The majority of the rest of Smoke Ring depicts Vile as a smart but apathetic songwriter. Writing for Coke Machine Glow, Christopher Alexander said “Kurt Vile’s music sounds like it was made entirely from bed on Sunday mornings,” which I think is a pretty vivid portrayal of the mood of this record.

I picked up Smoke Ring for My Halo three or four weeks ago now, but put off spending a lot of time with it because I got the War on Drugs’ Slave Ambient at the same time; since the two records share a certain degree of aesthetic similarities, I wanted to take them in one at a time and not confuse or bias my ears. Vile is a former member of the War on Drugs, a fact that is coincidental to my getting both records at the same time. That band’s singer, Adam Granduciel, has certain similarities to Vile—they both follow in a vocal lineage that descends from Bob Dylan and passes through Bruce Springsteen, among others. The War on Drugs have a bigger sound (chalk it up to being a full band and not a solo artist?), but there is still an element of numbness in both artists’ music.

A better contemporary comparison for Vile might be Cass McCombs. Many of Vile's songs are repetitive, a little strange, and morose, not unlike McCombs' pitch-dark songs (McCombs would win a competition for those descriptors, however). All of these songwriters, each in their own way, proffer a kind of detachment in their songs.

Is this a full-blown trend among contemporary (male) songwriters? Dylan's delivery by way of a Gen X slacker attitude, filtered through a 21st century glaze? (And it does seem to be a guy thing; some of the best or most renowned female songwriters of recent note—St. Vincent, Feist, Sharon Van Etten—are all writing much more direct, powerful, often virtuosic material. It's a flip from the past clichés of the tortured man and the forlorn girl.)

Vile, McCombs, and Granduciel are all part of a traditional songwriters' lineage. It's easy to hear varying degrees of Dylan, Cohen, Springsteen, (early) R.E.M., and (early) Elliott Smith, among others, in their songs. But the new wrinkle for this group of contemporary songwriters is that they seem to reflexively put the listener at arm's length—obscuring songs through production techniques, drowsy vocals, obtuse (post-Stipe?) lyrics. We've moved past the protests of the 60s (Dylan, Ochs), the blown-up drama of the 70s (John, Joel), the middle-class solidarity of the 80s (Springsteen, Mellencamp), the disillusionment and personal struggles of the 90s (Cobain, Smith), into the Age of Terror and information overload of the new century, where a popular response to The Way We Live Now is introversion, or at best an avoidance of speaking for anyone but oneself. There are few, if any, bold statements through song anymore. (Alternatively, you could call this a subset of a larger trend in [indie?] music that goes beyond guy-with-guitar songwriters and also includes a great deal of shoegaze-influenced atmosphere-rock of the last few years.)

Which is not to say there is necessarily some essential thing missing from Vile and McCombs' songs. (It's worth noting that McCombs, Vile, and the War on Drugs all made songs that appeared on my list of favorite tracks of 2011; McCombs' "County Line" is probably among my top three favorites, though I didn't care much for the rest of the album from which it came.) McCombs and Vile are both smart, literate songwriters, even if their songs rarely reveal true passion—that is, some kind of emotion or sense of urgency that, borrowing from Alexander's line above, would require them to get out of bed. That seems to be intentional on their part: it's not that they lack passion, but rather that the suppression of passion is part of their MO. Take Vile's "Society is My Friend," at the center of Smoke Ring—also the song that most reminded me of McCombs and kicked off this whole train of thought. Like a lot of McCombs' songs, it is long, repetitive, and filled with vivid if strange imagery ("Society is my friend / he makes me lie down in a cool bloodbath"). Vile tells of how his "friend" took his woman from him—"He stole my old lady, saying... kiss me with your mouth without closing it all that much." Society is an entity that is beautiful and dangerous and impossible to fight:

Society is all around Aw, hear the beautiful sound Of all the high-pitched squeals Ecstatic brilliance at its finest That's my friend Society is all around It takes me down

Over five and a half minutes Vile oozes his lyrics amid a swirl of music that nearly consumes him. He's not fighting something, he's allowing it happen around him. Life can be hard, think I'll stay in bed.

January 16, 2012

There are a lot of reasons to like the Dirty Three—the evocative mood their songs call up, the grandeur of their crescendos, Warren Ellis's rustic and beautiful violin. I like them for all those reasons too; those are the things I enjoy about the trio when I'm not thinking too hard on it, just letting their songs fill the air around me.

I like them for a different reason when I take the time to concentrate on their music. And that reason is Mick Turner. Turner is an unassuming player and most definitely not the member of the Dirty Three who is in the spotlight. But train your ears on his playing and you'll hear a style that describes few others.

Their latest track, "Rising Below," from the forthcoming Toward the Low Sun, is a good example. It hardly features Turner, but that's why it's such a good illustration of Turner's role in the group. It's easy to be taken with Ellis's overlapping violin lines or Jim White's shuffling, spirited drumming. But underneath it all is Turner. The sound of the group is all the more unique for Turner's taking on a role that might otherwise be held by a bassist, establishing a bridge between the drummer and the soloist and giving them both something to latch onto. Unlike a bass player locking into a drummer's kick, though, Turner's fragile, erratic playing mirrors White's skittering snare.

More wonderous to me are the actual notes Turner sprinkles out. He plays as if his fingers refuse to actually stay on the fretboard for more than a second at a time. He doesn't strum or pick his strings so much as let stray notes spill out of his guitar. The order in which the sounds come out of his guitar seems incidental but not accidental. Every note fits, no matter how he places them.

Obviously a lot of time spent listening to Kurt Vile this week—another newish discovery for me, via various end of year lists last month. I'll have more on that album next week. The new Shins song got me listening to old Shins songs (as you might have surmised from yesterday's post), and the trailer for the new Wes Anderson movie got me and some friends talking about the soundtracks to his films—always uniformly excellent soundtracks, but I think Rushmore's is my favorite.

January 13, 2012

Isn't it nice to have a new Shins song in the world? They've been gone so long I think they may have even lost the sting of being an indie rock punchline (they never deserved it). That is, he, not they. James Mercer is the only original member left. If there was any question as to how the drastic lineup change would affect the group's sound, "Simple Song" answers with a resounding "not really." The only real difference I can discern is in the drumming—Janet Weiss, who sits in for this track, is a more forceful player than Jesse Sandoval, and production-wise her drums simply sound better.

But those are minor differences, really. This is a Shins song, just like all the others. Mercer is a consistently compelling songwriter, which is a positive way of saying he is predictable. He falls into a similar category as Rufus Wainwright, Bjork, and Britt Daniel of Spoon, among many others: his menu of rhythms and melodies is limited, but something about the quality of his voice and the effortlessness of his playing keeps that from mattering. "Simple Song" is like a Frankenstein's monster of past Shins songs: the melody of the chorus is an echo of the chorus from "Gone for Good" (itself a peppier, higher octave mold of the melody from the bridge to "Young Pilgrims"), and the girl-group rhythm was done before on "Turn on Me" and "Phantom Limb."

Here's the thing though: to say Mercer has done it before is not (necessarily) to say he's done it better. Or worse! Is it possible to find someone who has never heard the Shins before and do a Pepsi Challenge? It's just as likely that they'd say "Simple Song" is their favorite as "Turn on Me" or "Gone for Good." And why not? It's a similar song, but it's great song. Actually, it's a terrific song.

January 12, 2012

"Marienbad," from Julia Holter's upcoming album Ekstasis, picks up where "Goddess Eyes," from 2011's Tragedy, left off. On Tragedy, "Goddess Eyes" is an accessible oasis on an otherwise pretty abstract record. "Marienbad" employs a similar accessibility—Holter's voice is the anchor to the track, overlaid on itself innumerable times. Of course "accessible" should be taken with a grain of salt. The song evolves as it goes, adding counter-melodies, percussion, and more as it travels over its 5:40 running time. For all its added density it never scales to epic heights; it's more amorphous than that. The song is a shape-shifter, full of lovely melodies that seem just slightly obscured in a mist, just hard enough to decipher that you can't quite sing along. By the end of the track you feel as if it's pulled you somewhere new, without ever having touched you.

Incidentally, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the video for "Marienbad" was created by artist Rick Bahto, someone I knew back in my Arizona days (read: over a decade ago) and who has come a long way since then. (I don't think he was even of drinking age back then... he used to come into the artspace/punk club I ran.) The footage in the video is multiple projections running over each other, with no edits or manipulations.

January 10, 2012

It's easy to hear some immediate surface similarties between War on Drugs singer Adam Granduciel's voice and that of Tom Petty or Bob Dylan, but for me that resonance has since evolved into a weird personal nostalgia for Dire Straits. My dad loved Dire Straits, and especially Brothers in Arms, so this is a welcome reference point for me (as opposed to, say, all the Steely Danisms happening elsewhere in the indie scene). Anyway, it's not just a personal thing. I mean, really, they're not that far away from the next "Walk of Life," are they?

January 09, 2012

Every instrument in the War on Drugs’ music has its assignment, no matter the song. (Though, interestingly, no member of the band is resigned to a specific instrument.) The drums are metronomic—no frills, no fills. The keyboards drone. The “No Rain”-inspired lead guitar solos and solos and solos. Despite (or because of) their rigidly defined roles, none of these elements are at the forefront of Slave Ambient. Rather, it's the rootsy presence of leader Adam Granduciel, whose Americana attitude meshes with the lite psyche of the rest of the band way more seamlessly than it has any right to. This whole record is pure chocolate and peanut butter—too down home to be Talk Talk, too monochromatic to be Wilco.

The whole record is equal parts familiar and inspired. In this age of washed out indie-ambient acts, it’s a wonder that the band is able to balance the two elements of its sound so deftly. Granduciel’s voice is high in the mix, not doused in (too much) reverb; his words are intelligible, his personality is anything but effaced. I’m reminded more of Tom Petty or Mark Knopfler than Kevin Shields or Panda Bear. (That I find this refreshing is, I think, an indictment of rock music in 2011/12.)

No, seriously, enough with all the comparisons to other bands. Slave Ambient is a good record. I was unmoved by it on the first few listens but have nevertheless been induced to return to it over and over. It's a repetitive listen—the rhythms are steady within the space of each track, there are few choruses, no breakdowns. The songs become part of a larger tapestry; the dynamics are found not from verse to verse but song to song.

The reckoning point of the album comes at the middle. This is where you know whether or not you’re on board with the War on Drugs or not. It starts with the locomotive “Your Love is Calling My Name,” which melts into the languid instrumental “The Animator” and then ascends to the almost-anthemic “Come to the City,” finally ending with the brief comedown of “Come for It.” The string of songs boosts Slave Ambient to another plane. I hesitate to say it’s epic—so much about this record is level, not grand; numb, not raw—but it belies a sense of purpose to these songs. Granduciel is not just enshrouding himself in mood and calling it art. He’s making music.

A slight visual tweak to my weekly soundtrack posts—a little repetition of imagery, to illustrate when/how certain albums take over any given week. Of course, this week isn't a great example of that outside of two spins of Slave Ambient (more on that record Monday). I listened to the entire first row of records on Sunday, New Year's Day. The last two albums, I listened to yesterday. In between I spent most of the week tweaking my favorite songs playlist and checking in here and there on a few blogs. Oh, and I was sick as a dog so I also spent most of the week sleeping, or wishing I was asleep.

January 05, 2012

By now you've made your way through all the end-of-year lists you can stomach, I'm sure. But wait! There's more: my favorite songs of 2011. I've made a mix of my 24 favorite tracks, excluding anything from my favorite albums of the year because it's a given that those albums each contain multiple favorites. The tracks below are not ranked, but are ordered for an ideal two-hour mix. (And for what it's worth, I don't think a lot of these tracks showed up on others' lists, so hopefully a lot of this will be new to you.) Click play on the first track to listen in sequence—or download all the songs and listen to them however you want. [Part I] [Part II]

January 02, 2012

This is every album I listened to in full, tracked week by week, in 2011. It's a total of 275 unique albums. 62 were new acquisitions, 26 were new albums I streamed but didn't buy, and the rest were albums from my collection.

Those 275 albums broken down by year or decade:

2011: 592010: 1500s: 7190s: 4180s: 970s: 3860s: 3550s: 640s: 1

Compared to the same sort of statistics around what I actually bought this year, it's notable that the numbers here for the 90s and 60s are so high—those are almost all familiar albums. You can see the same when you break the albums down by genre—note how many "classic indie" (indie from the 80s/90s) I listened to. I didn't actually buy any new-to-me albums that fit that category.

As for those albums that got a lot of plays but didn't wind up on my favorites of the year list—Fleet Foxes, Radiohead, and My Morning Jacket—it's probably safe to say those are the albums I most wanted to love, but didn't.

Looking at which albums spent the most number of weeks in rotation (at least one play in a given week), the favorites don't change much. Everything here wound up on my End of Year list:

The Belafonte is the only record not made in 2011 to stay in rotation for many weeks (though it was a new acquisition for me this year). Some older records, and longtime favorites in general, crop up more if you add up all the individual spins by artist rather than by album.

Clearly I was on a Low kick for part of this year. Paul Simon is always a mainstay on the family sound system, and now only more so with Coop's growing interest. Radio Dept. and Iron & Wine have been regularly played for years.

Anyway, this is all probably interesting to no one but me. Happy New Year!

December 28, 2011

I found a lot of great music this month, more than I can (or wish to) fit on this playlist. I purposefully ignored everything I featured in this post, also all discovered this month and highly recommended (and ps, some of these songs come from the same sources).

December 27, 2011

Aside from the first two albums on this list, December was, for the most part, spent catching up on other people's end-of-year lists in hopes of finding that perfect record that slipped past me in the last twelve months. I found a lot of great songs (some here, some to be listed tomorrow, some to be listed in my final EOY roundup of favorite 2011 songs, soon), and was compelled to pick up a handful of full-lengths for further investigation. Here's what I came back with, in the order I acquired them this month. I can't say, yet, whether I think any of these late-breaking additions to my listening year deserve a spot on my favorites of the year list—everything is still a little too fresh for me to decide—but at any rate there is some good stuff here.

Julia Holter: TragedyMy friend Cameron might have summed this record up best on twitter: "approaches my fantasy Laurie Anderson/Sunn 0))) collabo, but retains a whiff of the collegiate." Tragedy is, for the most part, a unique and wonderful album, drifting between moody atmospheres and a larger, carefully considered structure—often in the space of one track (actual track divisions on the record are best ignored, in favor of a front-to-back listening experience). There is a mythological concept underlying the record, if you wish to pay close enough attention to the words when Holter's voice comes in. Personally I prefer not to—I like the record more for its sonic journey than for its literary aspirations. Tragedy has a lot to offer, not least of which is the hint of great potential. Holter has another album slated for 2012, and judging by the first available track, she is only getting better.

The Caretaker: An Empty Bliss Beyond This WorldLeyland Kirby's release under the Caretaker moniker is possibly the subtlest album I've ever heard. That should be taken as a backhanded compliment, because there are times—lots of them, actually—where I wonder if the pleasure I find in this record has anything to do with Kirby at all. For this project Kirby loops extended passages from jazz 78s from the 1920s, and he emphasizes the crackles, pops, warps, and hisses of the records themselves. It's extreme nuance—and it's interesting!—but I'm fooling myself if I think the best parts of the tracks are because of Kirby. Rather, it's his source material. Which leads me to wonder if I wouldn't get just as much pleasure out of playing old, crackling jazz 78s. I like this record, but I don't know whether or not I like for the reasons Kirby intends. (n.b.: I've been advised to check out of some Kirby's releases under his own name, also from this year, which I've not gotten the chance to do yet.)

Nicolas Jaar: Space is Only NoiseOf all the minimalist electronica I've been listening to this month, Jaar's album is certainly the most fun. It's low, bassy, relaxed, stoned, and occassionally silly. But don't let that come off as a knock. Compared to Holter and Kirby's serious-minded albums, Jaar's record might actually be packed with more ideas.

December 26, 2011

I was listening to Nicolas Jaar's Space is Only Noise when "Keep Me There" came on. The song opens with two low, kinda dopey voices harmonizing on a simple melody, "duh, duh, duh-nuh-dee-duh." The thought passed through my mind that the languid electronica track would make a nice soundtrack to some druggy montage in a movie existing somewhere at the center of a venn diagram of The Big Lebowski, Pineapple Express, and Trainspotting.

Which got me thinking of soundtracks, which made me first think of the song "Oh Yeah" by Yello, which appears in the Ferris Bueller soundtrack, which then reminded me of George Kranz's bizarre "Dim Daa Daa," from the Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo soundtrack. "Keep Me There" feels like a sleepy descendent of these songs, especially "Dim Daa Daa"—it's like Kranz and Jaar had the same idea, but Kranz was buzzing hard on cocaine and Jaar is lost in a haze of weed.

December 24, 2011

Imagine: it's 3 am on New Year's Eve, and a drunk Rod Stewart is in a closed-down bar but refuses to leave the stage. He's vibing on "Auld Lang Syne" and nursing a heartache. Wait, no: it's the Walkmen.

The War on Drugs: Slave AmbientMy Morning Jacket: Does Xmas Fiasco Style (2)Bing Crosby: Christmas through the Years

Where has the week gone? Somehow I listened to almost nothing, other than a few Christmas songs and a couple of attempts to hear the War on Drugs. I've not been in the vicinity of one listening device—my headphones, my car stereo, my home or work set-ups—long enough to listen to more than a song or two at a time.

December 20, 2011

There are lots—lots—of end-of-year lists out there right now. I've sifted through so many lists for so many years that the very prospect of ingesting them all has become too tedious to bear. That said, there are a handful that I find to be pretty dependable every year, and that always yield at least a couple of finds for me. I've spent some time cycling through the tens (hundreds) of songs/albums on the lists below and have come away with something worthwhile from all of them. (Related, a couple of weeks ago I did a post of my favorite overall blogs of the last year—some overlap here, for obvious reasons. Also related: I listed my favorite albums of the year already, and my favorite "blind spot" discoveries; I'll do a favorite songs mix too, but probably closer to the new year.) This rundown, by the by, is sorted in the order I encountered the lists.

Why I like it:Say what you want about Altered Zones, but it had a strong aesthetic point of view that wasn’t bogged down in discussions of Odd Future, Lana del Ray, or Destroyer. All the better since it was a group blog and not just one person’s taste. I didn’t love everything on the blog (nor on this list), but I found lots of gems—namely and especially Julia Holter, whose album I promptly downloaded after hearing "Goddess Eyes."

Why I like it: Dave knows what he likes—mostly reverby indie and girl-fronted folk, with a few outliers—and he searches hard for it (The Beyonce #1 is one of maybe five mainstream tunes, fwiw). I like it too, though I admit I have a lower tolerance for too much of it, which is why I think I like to look for his song recommendations more than his album recommendations (though I look for those too). 76 songs is a lot to wade through, and I admit that about half of it didn’t really faze me, but there are some treasures in here.

Why I like it: All the things I said about Rawkblog could be said about The Decibel Tolls, too—it’s just different genres of music. Kenny Bloggins goes for old and new psychedelic, veering from the garagey end of that spectrum over to the more atmospheric and spectral. Bonus points on this list for including ten excellent reissues. This is probably my favorite overall list, for a good mix of consistency and breadth and its ratio of known to new-to-me material. (Also: I've seen Slave Ambient show up on a few lists, and I've even listened to it once or twice to get a vibe for it; but seeing it at #1 here made me go out and get it for real, in hopes of unlocking it.)

Why I like it: This is, for the most part, a very indie-centric list, but the meat of the list feels less on-trend than the blurred-out sounds of Pitchfork or, say, the twee-er sounds of Rawkblog’s mix. There’s something a little more Americana about PHW’s list that appeals—plus the left-field pick of Arrange, who I've never heard of but who turns in a Hood-like mix of ambient, electronic, and sad-sack bedroom indie.

I'm sure a few more worthwhile lists will come before year's end—Coke Machine Glow's has begun, and I usually find some good stuff via Swan Fungus, who hasn't revealed a list yet. Any other lists I've missed that you found especially rewarding? Let me know in the comments.

December 16, 2011

Among the 62 albums I acquired in 2011, many were old albums I'm only now catching up on. Some stuck with me better than others. Here are my (unranked) favorite new-to-me albums of the year.

Harmonia: Musik von Harmonia and Cluster: Zuckerzeit2011 was kind of a Clustery year for me. I acquired Zuckerzeit as well as an earlier Kluster album (terrible), two solo albums from Hans Joachim Roedelius (both not bad), and Harmonia's debut (Harmonia is Cluster + Neu's Michael Rother). Of them all, Musik von Harmonia and Zuckerzeit are far and away the best. Musik von Harmonia starts with the excellent "Watussi"—one of the group's best tracks and perhaps the clearest krautrock progenitor to modern techno outside of Kraftwerk. Overall that record is a seamless integration of the sounds of the two groups its members hailed from—"Sonneschein" and "Dino" contain the steady, train-like rhythms of Neu! while much of the rest of the record is immersed in the more meditative electronics Roedelius and Dieter Moebius traffic in with their main gig. Zuckerzeit was released the same year as Musik von Harmonia (1974), and I guess it shows: I bought both records on the same day and have found myself playing them back to back ever since.

Talk Talk: Laughing StockTalk Talk's last two albums (this, and before it, Spirit of Eden) are so perfectly realized that it's hard for me to find a way of even articulating what's so great about them. Both were reissued this year, along with Mark Hollis's one and only solo album (at the top of my to-buy list right now). I like Spirit of Eden just a hair more, but I think it has more to do with hearing it first—the two albums are of a piece. Both are spacious, emotive, tightly wound yet sounding loose and easy at the same time. No single song excels apart from the records as wholes—they are just ripples in a larger, perfectly evocative sea of music.

Harry Belafonte: CalypsoIn sharp contrast to all the moody ambient I listened to this year, one of my very favorite acquisitions of 2011 was Harry Belafonte's debut album from 1956. "Day-O" is the recognizable hit, and perhaps therefore the least compelling song on the record due to its oversaturation of the last 65 years. It's really all about the rest of the record—folky numbers that, for the most part, lack the boisterousnous you might associate with Belafonte due to a song like "Jump in the Line" (not on this album). The songs are all jams, in any case, including the ones that have a socially conscious undertone. I return to this album over and over, the same way I do my Les Paul or Doris Day greatest hits, Elis & Tom, or anything by Harry Nilsson—not because it shares anything specific in common with those albums, but because it is a pure joy to listen to.

Caetano Veloso and Gal Costa: DomingoRecorded before the tropicalia movement really took off, Domingo is a straightforward bossa nova album much more in line with Antonio Carlos Jobim and Elis Regina's Elis & Tom than with the more adventurous material Veloso and Costa would tackle just a year or so later. I give you that preamble so I can follow up with this: who cares? Domingo is a lovely album, perfect for quiet evenings and early mornings. No single song rises above or falls below the others—it's a consistently pleasurable 30 minutes of wonderful bossa nova.

Dillard & Clark: Through the Morning, Through the NightA couple of years ago I picked up Dillard & Clark's 1968 debut, The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark, and it has stood up as one of my favorite albums ever since. Their one and only follow-up is quite good, though perhaps not quite as good as the first. The band feels less focused—maybe it's all the covers, or the addition of Doug Dillard's girlfriend, Donna Washburn, who takes lead vocals on a fine cover of "Rocky Top." Regardless, Gene Clark's songcraft, overlaid by Dillard's bluegrass wizardry, shines through.

Brian Eno: Ambient 1: Music for AirportsAfter finally getting into Brian Eno a few years ago and realizing I'd discovered an artist who I knew would have rewarding record after rewarding record, I made the decision to take it slow going deeper into his discography (and to try, more or less, to take it chronologically). Thus I've spent the last few years digging on his earlier rock albums (for what it's worth: Here Come the Warm Jets > Another Green World > Before and After Science >> Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy). Just this month I finally bought my first ambient Eno album. Guess what: it's awesome. One more thing: I'm such an idiot for waiting until my 30s to get into Brian Eno.

Interesting things to me: I seem to consume roughly the same number of new-to-me indie rock albums every year. I bought 25 indie albums in 2009 and 29 indie albums in 2008 (I lost track in 2010). Indie rock always takes up the largest slice of the pie, too—a little less than half of my overall purchases this year and in 09, and a third of purchases in 08 (when my overall acquisition rate was much higher).

The rest of my year was defined by the next three genres on the list—ambient, krautrock, and electronic. In terms of genre groupings, the only real lines that are being drawn here are in terms of release dates (all the krautrock is from the 70s, nearly all of the ambient is from the last few years) or in terms of beats—though even my tastes in "electronic" music run toward the minimal and subdued—Nicolas Jaar, Actress, etc. So, if you lumped all those genres together you'd have an über-genre that accounted for a higher number of acquisitions than the ever-present indie rock. That would be a fairer portrait of where my head was at, listening-wise. The majority of the indie albums on this list, aside from those I mentioned on my end of year list last week and maybe three or four others, were not that compelling. In general my listening time, as far as these new-to-me albums went, was dedicated to the instrumental/abstract end of the spectrum. (Around the new year I'll do another post, similar to this one, but taking into acount every album I listened to in full this year, as opposed to limiting it to albums I acquired—so we'll see if my impression of my own listening holds true.)

I've already written about my favorite new albums of the year, and I'll write up my favorite "blind spots" from this list soon. That leaves a handful of albums in the above group that are too old to be part of 2011 list but too recent to feel like they belong on my annual blind spots list, which is dedicated to new-to-me classics. Of those, there are a couple that I feel are worth highlighting.

Since last year I've been downloading random tracks from Loscil, aka Scott Morgan, whenever I've come across them on various blogs. It wasn't until mid-year that I finally got to picking up one of his albums. He had a new album this year, Coast/Range/Arc, but I was encouraged by a few friends to start with Submers, from 2002. The album apparently has an underwater theme—all the titles are references to submarines—but that seems incidental to the fact that this is a really terrific ambient record. It's easy to get lost in, and just as easy to stay congnizant of Morgan's nuances.

Third Eye Foundation's The Dark came out in 2010, but I didn't get around to hearing it until early 2011 so it missed my favorites list from that year. The Dark was Matt Elliot's first album under the Third Eye Foundation moniker in almost a decade, and it was a monstrous return to form. The first four tracks function more like movements within a larger work, by turns ominous and chaotic. I wrote at length about it back in January, but feel it's worth noting that I've continued to return to the album throughout the year. As the album's title implies, it's a dark record; it's all-enveloping and is worth the immersion.

Finally, a couple of quick nods to two bands who appeared on my favorites of 2011 list, Disappears and Low. I also got Disappears' debut album, Lux, this year. Since it's not from 2011 it doesn't count in my best-of-year rundown; that said, it's very similar to Guider, but just that much better.

Also, as I've mentioned before on this blog, I returned to Low's discography after a long time away from it—despite them being arguably my favorite band of the 90s. So a good chunk of my year, espcially the spring, was spent listening to their more recent albums. I'd written them off for years but have realized the error of my ways. C'mon is still their best in at least a decade, but both The Great Destroyer and Drums and Guns are great too. (I've written a lot about Low over the years, so if you're interested, go here and just scroll through the posts.)

Much of this week was spent listening to albums I came across via other people's end-of-year lists—Tinariwen, The Caretaker, Julia Holter, Nicolas Jaar. Probably the rest of the month is going to be spent doing the same. Some good stuff here, though I don't know yet if I'll need to revise my own rundown of my favorites of the year.

December 06, 2011

When I was compiling my rundown of favorites for the year, making some attempt at a ranked list, a curious thing happened—the list shook out by genre. My three favorite albums of the year were all song-based albums—and, incidentally, by artists I was already familiar with. However, I probably listened to #4–6 as often as #1–3, if not more: these are the ambient records, which I tend to put on while I'm writing and/or working and/or looking for something to sink into, sonically. Finally, the psych rockers pulled up last—Disappears and Moon Duo. I fell a little harder into this genre in 2011, picking up an older Wooden Shjips album too and occasionally checking out a few other acts, old and new, who traffic in the repetitive, muscular rock (even a docile creature like me needs a little testosterone every once in a while). These albums, too, were good soundtracks to writing—just indecipherable enough to function like instrumental music, with a requisite amount of push to keep me engaged with writing and editing projects, or keeping me psyched up for working out/playing tennis.

That I'm inclined to split my favorites up like this—not only by genre but by the life tasks they most often soundtracked—says something about me as much as it says something about the year in music. What I heard of it, anyway. As much as I like all of these albums, none of them transcended themselves. None of them ran away with my heart. Or, they didn't run that far. That most of these albums are by artists I was already familiar with must mean something too: I tried looking for new artists, new sounds, and for the most part came up empty in 2011. I felt out of step with a lot of trends this year—call it nostalgia or chillwave or soft rock or PBR&B (doesn't matter if those are all different things). Outside of some of the nü-kosmiche ambient stuff, a lot of "new" sounds just didn't resonate with me in 2011. Too, the more tried and true genres, like good ol' fashioned indie rock or more straightforward songwriters, felt limp this year. Artists I've loved—My Morning Jacket, Okkervil River, Fleet Foxes, Iron & Wine—all put out albums that were just okay. Artists that were new to me—Real Estate, Smith Westerns, Tennis, Wild Beasts, Unknown Mortal Orchestra—ranged from so-so to not bad (fwiw, UMO was the best of the bunch; I hold out hope for whenever they mature to the next level).

Of course maybe I didn't look hard enough; that's on me. And I take it to heart that it's on me.

In a lot of ways I feel I've been in a fog in 2011, and I'm pretty sure it's not entirely due to listening to krautrock and ambient. Lives change: you get busy, you work hard, you crave silence or television, you want to spend time with your family and not on a computer or plugged into an iPod. You get stressed about money. You want to exercise more. You want to spend a lot of time with your kid and you want your kid to chill out, too. You want to go on dates with your wife more often than you can actually afford to. You want to drink a little more, stay up a little later, sleep in past seven (or six, or five), but all of those things have become risky propositions. You want to read the paper in one sitting in the morning—not via your iPhone in bed at night. You want to know what's going on in the world by outlets other than your twitter stream. You want to stop feeling so busy, but you also don't want to admit that you waste a lot of your time. You want all of that, and you want a few other things too—so it's no wonder searching out music on the internet starts to feel... not without pleasure—not at all! But difficult, and easy to give up on.

This list of albums is a contrast (and a complement) to what I dubbed my son's top songs of the year. Those songs—not typical kids songs but oldies, classic country, and generally happy, often deliriously goofy songs—also made up a big part of my listening year. Those were the "family songs." They played around the house, on road trips, etc. Those are rightfully and wonderfully going to be the soundtrack to my memories of this period of my life, when my son was a toddler and I worked in a museum and our house was small and my wife was home and I occasionally ghost wrote blog entries for a professional organizer and the weather was always great. Maybe Tim Hecker and Disappears will soundtrack those memories too, in a different way. Maybe. Maybe I'll forget I'd ever heard those records.

Doesn't matter. All of these albums were my albums in 2011. Outside of Feist's Metals and Eleanor Friedberger's Last Summer, my wife was not especially into any of these albums (if she heard them at all). I listened to them on my own time—while walking to work, or in my office, or driving to the tennis courts, or when I was home alone, or in a coffeeshop doing a freelance job. It's hard, lately, to have something that feels totally, 100%, like it's mine. The circle you're able to draw around yourself gets smaller as you get older, have a kid, get a promotion, etc. That's not a complaint—it just means the things that are yours become more precious. With that perspective I look at this list and, on one hand, wish that I liked all of these albums even more—that they fazed me the way, say, albums by Andrew Bird or Animal Collective or Fleet Foxes or Midlake did in past years. And on the other hand I feel a closeness to all of these records. They are pools I can swim into, blankets I can wrap myself up in, hands I can hold, friends I can sing with.

2011 has been a funny year. In some ways it's been one of the happiest of my life, and in others I feel like I sleepwalked through the whole thing. If that's true, then what does this best-of-11 list mean? What are these songs, what were these albums? This:

I walked to work with Moon Duo's Mazes in my headphones. I crossed busy intersections and passed a hospital and stopped at a Starbucks where I occasionally bought a sausage sandwich despite knowing that I should choose anything that is even slightly healthier.

I pushed through while listening to Disappears' Guider (and, for that matter, Lux, their 2010 debut). Pushed through tedious freelance projects, pushed through long days in my windowless office. I felt a connection to an older version of myself—the one who blasted the Jesus Lizard in his dorm room and screamed into a microphone in an warehouse in an industrial park in downtown Phoenix in the summer with no AC while 15 sweltering kids, two of whom had Romulan haircuts because that was a thing, nodded their heads.

I wrote and wrote and wrote to Rene Hell's The Terminal Symphony, an album that I can rarely remember after it's over but I continually feel compelled to return to.

I recognized in Mountains' Air Museum that I'm a sucker for the current trend in ambient music that apes the sweet 70s synths of Cluster and Harmonia, et al., and that I'm okay with that.

I buried myself in Tim Hecker's Ravedeath, 1972. Sometimes that felt perfect, and sometimes I hated that I felt the need to bury myself in anything.

I felt happy listening to Eleanor Friedberger's Last Summer—an album that I wasn't expecting would make me happy. She became sort of like a friend who could take it if I called her stupid—2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-0-0-0-0-0-0-1-0—because she and I both suspected, really, that she might be a genius.

I reconnected with Low, via C'mon, as if they were a brother or sister I hadn't talked to in ten years. Love and regret welled up inside of me as I realized that they had been perfect during all those years I'd been away from them (I bought Trust, The Great Destroyer, and Drums & Guns this year, too). I became cognizant of how much I had missed them, and how much I loved them. Truly, loved them! I imagined that they were feeling the same way about me on the other side of their record, wherever they were.

I felt bittersweet listening to Feist's Metals—by far, by the way, her best album. I felt touched by her words, uplifted by her music. I felt like the year, musically speaking, had redeemed itself when an artist I knew I loved was able to do better than everything she'd done before. I felt rejuvinated by her achievement. I felt sad because so much of this record is about losing something; it made me think about all the things I have to lose. I felt happy because I haven't lost anything. I felt thankful.

When we were out last week for my birthday, "The Circle Married the Line" was playing in the car and my brilliant wife said it might be her favorite song on the record. I told her I really liked it too, though lyrically it didn't make any sense to me. She said she thought the image in the chorus was really beautiful, really simple. I didn't understand—I must not have thought enough about it, because in my mind (really!), I just thought about geometry (or sex). I hadn't considered that I might be right or wrong about it—I just liked the song. She said, "It's the sunset—the sun marries the horizon. It's such a lovely way to put it."

It was. It was beautiful. We were in a parking garage in Hollywood at midnight, and it was beautiful. I saw the sun dip into the ocean and I let out a long breath. I turned on the car and we drove home. The first day of the new year had begun.

December 05, 2011

As Cooper's second birthday looms, he's finally aged to the point where he has developed some bona fide opinions about music—or at least latched onto a few favorite songs. Being that this is a household that emphasizes songs the whole family can enjoy (while not wholly outlawing outright kids' music), the majority of the songs on this list are simply oldies for young'uns. These are the songs (especially of late) that Coop asks for by name, and/or can "sing" on request.

The Beach Boys: Barbara AnnThe song we've probably been singing to him most consistently since he was born. He finally got in the habit of doing the "Ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba-aaan" on his own a month or so ago. Not counting his own made up songs, which constitute him saying "MOMMY" or "DADDY" in a high, meandering sing-songy voice, this is the first song Coop learned the words to.

Les Paul and Mary Ford: Bye Bye BluesIt just so happens that "bye bye" and "blue" were both words in his vocabulary, so it became a joy for him to actually put the two together once he connected to this song. "No cry, no sigh" came along in direct response to this tune. He requests this song about 85 times daily.

The Playmates: Beep Beep (The Little Nash Rambler)Okay, if you don't have kids, or if you don't know it from when you were a kid, you're probably not going to stomach this song beyond one or two novelty listens. But let me assure you that it is THE HIT of the household right how.

Simon & Garfunkel: Leaves that are GreenWhen Coop discovered the black circles inside the square packages lining our shelves, he was obliged to take them all out and spread them out on the floor. When he learned that if you put the black circles on the turntable, music came out, he was hooked. Now every day he says "records! records!" because he wants to see the magic happen. His favorite is "red record," aka Simon & Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence (which has a red label...as opposed the "yellow record," Electric Prunes' Mass in F Minor—of all records!). We skip the opening track and start it on "Leaves that are Green," a jaunty little tune all about growing old and dying.

The Free Design: Kites are FunHe learned about kites through The Cat in the Hat, in which Thing Two and Thing One have lots of good fun with a kite. So of course this resonated with him, for despite never having seen a kite in person, he knows that kites are fun. Unclear whether, when he says "Kites Fun!" he is requesting this song or requesting that book. Pretty sure it's the song.

Serge Gainsbourg: Comic StripA late-breaking addition to the list—he just heard this song for the first time yesterday, but it was a huge hit. Choreography during the Brigitte Bardot parts went a long way.

The Kinks: David WattsNot unlike "Barbara Ann," Coop latched on to the "Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa-Fa-Fa" of this song.

Tennessee Ernie Ford: Sixteen TonsIn truth I think Coop just likes this song because his mom and I have so much fun singing along to it. There was a day though where it was the only thing he wanted to listen to. Hope the lyrics are not a harbinger for his lot in life. Oh well, at least we can take comfort from Simon & Garfunkel that every life will eventually come to an end, even the hard ones.

Everything on Tom T. Hall's Country Songs for Children is really terrific. Earlier this year someone released a tribute compilation to this album, but that seems totally unnecessary. Seek out the original (on Spotify, if nowhere else—that's where we listen to it).

Finally, a truly wonderful Sesame Street song from the 70s, "What's the Name of that Song?" There are actually a lot of great Sesame Street songs out there, old and new, but this one is the king in this house.

For my birthday on Wednesday I did two things I haven't done in a long, long time: I saw a movie in a movie theater (The Descendants), and I shopped in a bricks-and-mortar record store. I went in without a list but within about fifteen minutes had six different used CDs in my hand, while my brilliant wife had a handful herself, plus some old vinyl. After some anguished decision-making, we came home with Brian Eno's Music for Airports, Dillard & Clark's second album, Tom T. Hall's greatest hits, and a few Christmas records.

It's a nice feeling—and, weirdly, a increasingly foreign experience—to have finite options presented to you (i.e., only what is in the store, only what is used, only what you come across), and choosing based on passé criteria like cost, value, rarity, desirability. Music for Airports and Through the Morning, Through the Night are both albums I've wanted for a long time, but for whatever reason I've never looked for them via the internet. Seeing them in front of my face was a surprise and a delight—oh yeah, I want these! Yes! (Alternatively, I justified not picking up one album—Eno Moebius Roedelius Plank's Begegnungen—because the bill was getting too high and I figured it was out there on the web, somewhere.)

December 01, 2011

I joked the other day that my ideal blog would be a perfect mixture of drone, old-timey country, and Feist. Not a joke: I guess that's kinda what Pretty Goes with Pretty is, though my ideal blog would update more frequently. The truth of the matter is that I pilfer all my best musical finds from a handful of other blogs working harder than me. So, here are the blogs that have been conveniently pushing my tastes along in 2011. If I could figure out how to put 'em all in a blender and create one super blog that publishes perfect mixes daily, I would. If you like the music I've been posting here of late, you have the below people to blame for 85% of it.

The Adios LoungeAn eclectic mix, especially good when LD gets into the old stuff (honestly my tastes diverge from his when he goes past the 70s), or goes on an in-depth excavation of a band or musician, such as his epic Clarence White posts (search it on his blog).

Altered ZonesUnfortunately it's gone belly-up as of this week. Altered Zones was a good punching bag for anyone who wanted to shit on hipster trends of the last 18 months or so (and in truth it had too many press release-like posts to be 100% trustworthy), but frankly I found a lot of good music this year thanks to that blog.

Aquarium Drunkard (@aquadrunkard)Justin Gage has been running Aquarium Drunkard for six years now, so this blog should be no revelation to anyone. It's a great mix of old and new—a balance that seems harder to pull off than you might expect, given how few blogs pull it off well.

The Cargo Culte (@theallseeingi and @cmetz)Friends of mine, so full disclosure and all that, but in any case a Cargo Culte mix is worth delving into. Heavy psych, old-school punk, Vietnamese 60s girl groups—every mix likely goes somewhere you haven't been before. And of course the mixes are only half of it—each mix is paired with a heavily researched tale from the fringes.

For the Sake of the SongKinda like the Adios Lounge, For the Sake of the Song is at its best when it goes back in time. The mixes—songs linked by a common word, or just straight up random—almost always contain a few real gems.

Rawkblog (@daverawkblog)Dave Rawkblog is my go-to for reverby indie rock or newfangled songwriters. Some of my favorite songs of the year—like Little Scream's "Heron and the Fox"—are due to his hunting. The main Rawkblog site is a great source for new mp3s and news around the bands he likes. What sets it apart from a lot of pseudo-newsy and/or band-breaking blogs is that Dave legitmately stans for the bands he adores, and doesn't bother posting for bands he's ambivalent about, no matter the buzz level. All that said, I might even like following his tumblr more, just because it's a little more off the cuff and more about what he's thinking about, less about what he's listening to.

The Rising StormThe best blog going if you're looking for lost classics of the 60s and 70s. Folk, psych, pop, etc. It's essential.

Singing in the WireAlmost everything I know about old country music—or heck, any country music—is courtesy Paul from Singing in the Wire (previously Setting the Woods on Fire). I credit him for my newfound love of Tom T. Hall, Hank Snow, the Delmore Brothers, and many more. Not to mention this is the music that is shaping my son's toddler-hood!

20 Jazz Funk GreatsBeing honest, I never read this site. I've tried a few times but I can't get on board with a lot of their words. But musically their taste level is pretty fantastic. It occasionally gets too dance-heavy, but the ambient and more "headphone-oriented" tracks are almost uniformly excellent.

Swan Fungus (@evanhlevine)I was a big ambient/drone fan about 12 or 15 years ago, but somewhere around the new century I lost the thread on the genre. A year or two back I stumbled into Swan Fungus and have more or less been following Evan's lead when it comes to that music. (He posts about a lot more than that, but that's how he hooked me.)

These blogs are the source for a lot of my musical development of the last year—country, ambient, psych, etc. Now, that said, there is a whole other group of bloggers out there who used to do more typical music blogs but who have all migrated entirely to tumblr (not counting paid gigs), where the emphasis (in my eyes, anyway) has become a lot more about the writing and lot less about sharing music (even if music is still the topic). Eric Harvey, Jonathan Bogart, Nitsuh Abebe, Mark Richardson, Brad Nelson, Marc Hogan... I'm probably forgetting about ten or fifteen others. I find that in recent years my ears have moved further and further from theirs (sorry, I'm just not super into rap and pop! sorry!), but great writers are great writers are great writers.

November 28, 2011

Given the approaching end of year, I thought I'd be spending November catching up on records I missed earlier in the year, for maximal list-making capabilities. Not so, for whatever reason. I'm just as tuned out as ever, apparently. Only picked up two new-to-me albums this month. Sort of an odd pairing for a blog post, but so be it.

Oneohtrix Point Never: ReplicaI spent most of November listening to this album over and over, trying to love it more than I did. Only in the last week or so have I finally been able to admit to myself that, despite the brilliance of Daniel Lopatin's last album as Oneohtrix Point Never, Replica just doesn't do it for me. It's quite different from Returnal—there are more beats, more chopped up sounds, less spacious ambient tracks—and that's okay. I don't mind that it's different, I just want it to be better. Or, I want to connect with it on a more substantive level and I've just been incapable of doing so. In that way it reminds me of albums by the Books (only less humorous); it's odd and screwy and a little IDM-ish and, importantly, interesting... but not compelling. It's just good, not great.

Can it be that only a week ago I saw Feist in concert? It feels ages ago. Anyway, it was a terrific show and only made any "adult contemporary" references to this new album more obnoxious. It was a big, epic-feeling show with lots of peaks and valleys, supported by a terrific backing band and a trio of fantastic backup singers, who apparently go by the name Mountain Man when not singing with Feist. Probably my favorite live show of the year.

November 14, 2011

Despite calling myself a huge Cat Stevens fan—his songs have been a part of my life since I was a child—I own very few actual Cat Stevens full-length albums. Rather, I grew up with two greatest hits albums, and sometime in my twenties acquired a third greatest hits album that had a bunch more songs.

Why don't I own any outright albums? It goes back to my first record store job, back when I was 19 years old and a sophomore in college. I was able to check out used albums from the store's stock for a few days at a time, so I sampled a few Stevens albums—I think it was Mona Bone Jackson and Numbers. My instant reaction at the time was that, aside from the excellent songs I already knew, the rest of his songs were hokey and unintentionally silly. There ended my engagement with his full-lengths.

Tea for the Tillerman is one of his most acclaimed albums, and I wonder if the reason I didn't sample that album those many years ago was simply because it wasn't an option to me at the time. Because here I am sixteen years later, more or less hearing it for the first time. Guess what? It's fantastic.

I say "more or less" because, of the eleven tracks here, I know six of them backwards and forwards. "Where Do the Children Play," "Wild World," "Hard Headed Woman," and more—I've known these songs forever and they rank among my favorites of Stevens'. Nevertheless, Tea for the Tillerman still surprised me in a couple ways—not least was that all the songs I didn't already know are also really terrific.

Hearing the familiar songs within the context of this album also made me hear them in a new way. One of my favorite things about the various greatest hits albums I own is that they are so uplifiting. The content of Stevens' songs are often concerned with searching for spiritual salvation, and are optimistic more often than they aren't. I also can't help but identify with his songs in a kind of childlike way—these were the soundtrack to my toddlerhood, so I hear a song like "Wild World" as if it's a nursery rhyme and not the creepy kiss-off that it actually is. (I'd always read it as a kind of father-to-daughter narrative until I grew up a little and realized it was a breakup song between an older man and a young woman.) There are some downer songs on the greatest hits albums, of course—"Trouble" being the most obvious and most heartbreakingly lovely—but overall the records feel really positive.

Tea for the Tillerman is a different animal. The hits that came from this album—i.e., a full half of this album—are decidedly on the sad side of Stevens' coin. "Where Do the Children Play" aligns modern life with a corruption of innocence; "Miles from Nowhere" is about being lost (its more optimistic flipside, "On the Road to Find Out," comes a few tracks later); and titles like "Sad Lisa" and "But I Might Die Tonight" ought to give you further indication that this is not Stevens' sunniest release. It is a truly beautiful album, however—one need only hear "Into White" to know that.

The new Cass McCombs is, in my eyes, a rebound from the dour Wit's End, released earlier this year. Anyone who calls this McCombs' "upbeat" album, however, is speaking in extremely relative terms. There is nothing on here that is better than "County Line," from Wit's End, nor do I think it's overall better than Catacombs, but it's still a pretty good album.

November 11, 2011

Belle and Sebastian: If You're Feeling Sinister and The Life PursuitBrian Eno: Here Come the Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Before and After Science, and Another Green WorldFugazi: Red MedicineOneohtrix Point Never: Replica (4) and ReturnalFeist: MetalsThe Beach Boys: Smile SessionsCass McCombs: Humor RiskNick Drake: Five Leaves LeftTom T. Hall: Country Songs for Children

Due to some busy times offline I neglected this blog for the last week or so, hence "last week's soundtrack," posted six days late.

I'm finally getting into the habit of using Spotify, using it to listen to a Nick Drake album I had on CD a long time ago but lost sometime in the days before I imported every last thing into iTunes, as well as sampling the new Beach Boys and Cass McCombs releases, not to mention the go-to kids soundtrack in these parts, Tom T. Hall's Country Songs for Children. (If you want to follow me there, search scottpgwp.) Thus far I can bear the commercial interruptions, my mediafire-induced guilt has dropped considerably, and my ballooning hard drive is less burdened.

For no real reason, this month's mix happens to be the least eclectic and also contains zero electronica or ambient—the genre that, until now, has felt like the unifying thread of all my monthly mixes. At any rate—as usual, this mix is meant to be listened to in order.

Aside from the Andrew Bird track, everything here dates from 1972 or earlier, and most fall on the narrow spectrum between folk and country. So be it! If you like any of these songs, visit my sources to hear more.

November 10, 2011

After a dry summer, my acquisitive streak seems to have returned, both for old and new records. Here's a rundown, in the order I picked things up.

Motion Sickness of Time Travel: Luminaries & SyntastryThis has been a fantastic year for the ambient/nü-kosmiche genre—I count albums by Tim Hecker, Rene Hell, and Mountains all among my favorites of 2011 so far. That means the bar is pretty high for the genre right now. Which is bad news for Motion Sickness of Time Travel (aka Rachel Evans). I find Luminaries & Synatry to be a fine record—good for writing or reading and the like—but it rarely grips me as a work of art, as the best of the year often do.

Roedelius: Durch die Wüste and Selbsportrait IHearing the Roedelius Schneider track last month reminded me that my journey through the old Harmonia/Cluster universe is far from over. Among other albums long on my to-buy list have been some of Roedelius' early solo albums. Through some degree of happenstance, these are the two I picked up. (Did I miss a better option? Please advise!) Durch die Wüste, his first solo release, starts with an unexpected (and not terrific) rock vamp before the rest of the record settles into the more identifiable relaxed synths-and-piano compositions. Between the two albums I picked up, I prefer Selbsportrait I, his third solo album and first in his acclaimed Selbsportrait series. It feels a little closer to the sounds of Cluster, though with fewer beats. (Actually, it reminds me more of Raymond Scott than Cluster—which is sort of what Cluster would sound like if they didn't have any beats. So, go figure.)

Joe Byrd & The Field Hippies: The American Metaphysical CircusAfter a track by the United States of America came up on shuffle earlier this month, I went on a "whatever happened to" Google search and ran across this, USA leader Joe Byrd's return following the original band's break up. It's clearly meant as a sequel of sorts, given that the album title is identical to the opening track on the USA's one and only album. No other USA members appear among the dozen or so Field Hippies, a cast of L.A.-based musicians and singers, but Byrd is clearly going for the same sound—an eclectic mix of psychedliea and avant electronics, with equal doses humor and haze. Unfortunately the album just comes off as second rate. As similar as it is, it just falls flat compared to USA's spark. It's not a bad album, but it's just okay—and a disappointment compared to Byrd's earlier masterpiece.

October 31, 2011

Halloween is officially a new kind of holiday. Sure, we dressed the kid up last year, but he couldn't even walk back then. We put him in a Western-ish shirt he already had, cut out a star from some shiny paper, called him a sheriff and called it a day. Not so this year. This year my brilliant wife created this owl outfit and we've thus far participated in two different neighborhood events full of a zillion other kids from around the way. When the entertainment at the block party on Saturday was three local boys, all on guitar and with no rhythm section, playing instrumental Jimi Hendrix covers, I knew I had entered a new world. Who knew, by the way, that Halloween was a three-day event? Not me. Halloween itself has not even occured yet! The grand finale is still to come.

October 29, 2011

Feist: Metals (6) and The ReminderRoedelius: Selbsportrait IJoe Byrd & The Field Hippies: The American Metaphysical CircusUnknown Mortal Orchestra: s/tEleanor Friedberger: Last SummerRene Hell: The Terminal SymphonyMy Morning Jacket: The Tennessee FireMountains: Air MuseumFour Tet: Rounds and There is Love in YouFleet Foxes: Helplessness Blues

So much conversation about Feist on the internet this week. Or, the idea of Feist. Mostly the conversation had to do with "adult" music and Feist was a stand-in for that trope. I just hope people are, you know, listening to the new Feist album—because it's terrific! I came close to writing more on the topic but stopped myself after deciding I've been to this well too many times. I feel I have more to write about Feist, but for now I'm finished writing about adult music. I'm an adult, I listen to music. So are all of you.

Curiously left out of the conversation, since their album came out almost six whole months ago, was Fleet Foxes. I returned to Helplessness Blues after some time away from it, only to learn my opinion about it hasn't changed. It's a a fine album but it doesn't touch the debut. The wash of harmonies scrubs most of the dynamics away. Pretty songs in small doses, sort of a mush when played straight through.

The unexpected highlight of the week for me was getting the chance to see Paul Simon live at the Gibson Amphitheatre. The last time I saw Simon live was on the Graceland tour and I was probably 10 years old. It was the second concert I'd ever been to (first: Jimmy Buffett) and still ranks as one of the most memorable concert experiences of my life. This week's concert was a little more sedate—the difference between seeing Simon at 70 instead of Simon at 50, I guess—but it was still pretty terrific. He played a lot of songs from his latest album, which I don't really know very well, but also managed to get in most of Graceland and plenty of highlights from the rest of his career, including a couple of Simon & Garfunkel tunes. Of all the songs he could have chosen, I wasn't expecting "The Only Living Boy in New York," but it was a welcome highlight. Surprisingly, the other two high points of the night were his pianist's mid-set solo, which had more in common with contemporary composers than jazz or rock, and Graceland's penultimate track "That Was Your Mother." I've always loved that song, but it's still probably the seventh or eighth track I'd recommend from that album. Live, it sparkled.

October 19, 2011

When I think of artists who have been the soundtrack to the last decade of my life—a pretty significant decade filled with marriage, dues-paying, success, death, and birth—Feist is one of the first who comes to mind. Both Let It Die and The Reminder latched onto me and wouldn't let go, seeing me through my share of highs and lows.

That’s not to say I found either album to be perfect. In fact, both are patchy efforts to my ears, each containing highs so high that I eventually forgive the lows. By now I’ve listened to both so many times that the songs that originally bothered me are now beloved like family (second cousins, maybe, rather than brothers or sisters, but family). When Feist's songs hit me—“Mushaboom,” “Let It Die,” “So Sorry,” “1234,” and so on—they hit me hard. They feel like perfection. They’re perfectly sweet, perfectly buoyant, perfectly regretful, perfectly yearning. Yet just as often her songs don’t nail my bull’s eye. Their softness nags at me, their sultriness irks me; they set off irony alarms inside of me that I’m never truly certain they intend to set off. For an artist I profess to love, Feist sure does make me wrestle with her music, and with myself. How someone whose specialty seems to be making comfortable music can make me feel so uncomfortable, is a conundrum. But here’s the thing: Feist’s albums are worth wrestling with.

But let's not dwell on past records. Metals, Feist’s newest, is her best. It’s one of those deceptively wonderful albums that doesn’t really announce itself on first listen, yet over time sinks its hooks into you. On first listen I felt like a lot of the songs bled into each other, aside from a few noticeable spikes like the climax of “Graveyard.” I couldn’t fully pay attention to the record and lost track of how long I’d been listening to it. I kept thinking “this must be the last song,” and then another song would come on and I’d think it again. I didn’t hear anything as immediate as “1234” or “I Feel It All” or “My Moon My Man.” That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, it just meant that Metals wasn't easy to latch onto.

Then I listened to it a few more times and developed a more measured response: Metals is Feist’s most cohesive album, consistently good from front to back. Another way of saying that, I thought, was that the lows were higher but the highs were lower. Fewer homeruns but fewer strikeouts, too.

Then I listened to it again, and again, and again. And now I feel fully immersed in Metals, in sync (I think) with what Feist is trying to accomplish with the record. One thing she’s not trying to do is repeat the lightning-in-a-bottle success of her The Reminder. (Could she, even if she tried?) Metals is a pure, beginning-to-end listening experience, its peaks and valleys drawing on each other for their impact. It’s not a casual collection of songs like Let It Die or a patchwork of different, sometimes conflicting moods as on The Reminder. Metals is moody without being dark, by turns beautifully intimate and passionately boisterous.

There’s a certain kind of song that Feist has always been good at writing: the simple, hushed numbers like “Gatekeeper” or “So Sorry.” That kind of song is here too, in the form of “How Come You Never Go There” or “Cicadas and Gulls.” But she’s found a new way to contrast those tracks; instead of the upbeat pop numbers of The Reminder or the soft-rockisms of Let It Die, she’s invited a troupe of backup singers to boost her aches and yearnings to new heights. “The Bad in Each Other,” “Graveyard,” “A Commotion,” “The Circle Married the Line,” “Bittersweet Melodies,” “Undiscovered First,” “Comfort Me”—all feature a phalanx of voices, a heavily emphasized rhythm section, and/or a buoying string section to amplify her songs without overpowering them. Over the course of a dozen tracks, Feist manages to color Metals with a variety of tones and emotions without ever deviating from the overarching mood of the record. This is something she’s never managed before. Metals is by far her most mature, most assured effort.

It's basically all about Feist right now, but more on that in the next day or two. Meanwhile, I also dug up Hearts and Bones for the first time in, I don't know, two decades? I honestly can't remember the last time I heard this album. There are a few songs on here that rank among my least favorite Paul Simon songs of all times (for instance "Allergies"), but there are some nice songs here too. Overall I find it to be... okay.

October 10, 2011

The new Mates of State album is exactly what you'd expect it to be—sugar-high indie pop powered by Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel's constant harmonies and all-earworms-all-the-time melodies. Much like the New Pornographers (though a little more emo), they make their craft seem so easy it might be mistaken for uninspired and boring.

It's most definitely not boring—every song, just like on their other records, begs to be sung along or danced to. Nevertheless I stress "just like on their other records." Again like the New Pornos (and a ton of other bands, to be fair), the question for you is whether or not you need more of the same in your life. Some do, some don't.

Based on only a few listens so far, I can tell what kind of record Mountaintops will be for me: I'll rate nearly every song four stars (read: no classics, no duds), will listen to it for a week or two, and then it will bleed into the fabric of my iTunes library for the rest of my life. Its songs will pop up on shuffle in all the appropriate smart playlists, or when I'm in the mood I'll put all my Mates of State albums on random. In any case Mountaintops will soon cease to function as a discrete collection of ten songs.

Don't get me wrong: that's not a bad fate for an album. There's lots of outcomes for albums' long-term consumption in the iTunes age. I could delete them all together (hello/goodbye Gayngs and Mi Ami), I could keep them in my sprawling library but never find my way back to them (long time no see Wolf Parade and Wye Oak), or I could cling to the record as most artists hope their works are clung to (it's like you never left, Andrew Bird and Radio Dept.). Mountaintops, and the Mates of State in general, falls somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, and so do a lot of albums by consistently solid and pleasurable bands (please make room, Pernice Brothers, Kings of Convenience, and Beach House).

October 06, 2011

October 05, 2011

Putting together these monthly mixes has become one of my favorite things to do on Pretty Goes with Pretty. It's not like putting together a typical mix, which usually has some unifying theme. No, these are mixes made with strict rules:

all the songs were downloaded within the last month

all are new to me, and it should go without saying that I think they're all great

the mix is intended to be listened to straight through and should be a satisfying experience

(The fourth, til-now-unspoken rule is that each month's mix must also flow from last month's mix, because I keep a single mega-playlist of the year's mixes on my iTunes)

This sounds simple but in many months can be quite challenging. First, I'm letting my tastes dictate what must be included in the mix—whether it's country, soul, ambient, indie, whatever. Then I need to figure out how to make that all run in a way that seems natural. This month was probably the most challenging all year. I must have listened to these ten songs in varying orders for the last two weeks, before finally settling on this one tonight. It's probably not my most elegant mix, but I do like some of the weird juxtapositions, especially hearing the sound of the keyboard in Roedelius Schneider's "Single Boogie" echoed by the sound of the Equals' guitars).

Anyway, have at it: press play on song #1 and just let the rest go. Hope you enjoy. If you want to hear the other mixes I've done this year, click here and scroll through the various "Favorite Downloads" mixes.

October 03, 2011

So continues my summer of not really listening to very much new music. I think I've actually reached the point where I prefer it.

Moon Duo: MazesI've become a bigger Wooden Shjips fan this year, picking up Dos a few months ago and listening to that pretty regularly ever since. I was getting psyched for their new album, West, to come out, but then got distracted by Moon Duo, a sjide project. A few voices on the internet were claiming that Mazes, released earlier this year, was better than West. So I got this instead. You never really know what to expect with side projects, but in this case you're basically getting a Wooden Shjips record. It's the same repetitive psych, totally on par with all the other WS stuff I've heard thus far. I'm still keen on West and will probably pick it up before the year is over. I can foresee hitting my quota with this band/sound sooner or later, but for now I'm still eating it up.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra: s/tI ran across a couple of Unknown Mortal Orchestra tracks last month and put "Thought Ballune" on my mix of favorite downloads for August. That song has continued to burrow its way into my head to become one of my favorite new songs of the year so far. The rest of their new album is right in line with that track. And I say that as a for-better-or-worse statement. Unknown Mortal Orchestra's production aesthetic is some strong stuff: the experience of the record is almost like tuning in to some far-off, static-addled radio station playing vaguely identifiable cuts from the 60s, 70s, or maybe even 90s (or, heck, maybe they're just Ween fans?). The retro songcraft filtered through the mangling distortion makes all of the songs here feel well-worn and perfectly on trend at the same time (again, for better or worse). I like all of this record, though by the end the aesthetic starts to take away from the songs themselves. For a debut this is fine—the sound is fresh, compared to many of their 80s-plagued peers. I'd hope that by their next album, the songs truly rise above the sound.

I attempted to get back in the swing of keeping up with new releases this week but I'm not sure it stuck. I streamed both the new Wilco and new Ryan Adams at NPR—the Wilco was a disappointment; the Ryan Adams was much better, though in the end I wasn't in the mood for its sustained moodiness.

September 29, 2011

Today is our tenth wedding anniversary. Ten years! A few things have happened since then: moved from Arizona to New York to start our life together. Found great jobs and great friends while we were there. Jill schooled me on classic films. We lived in a giant empty loft in an industrial building in Williamsburg with little more than a mattress and two incredibly uncomfortable kitchen chairs. We moved to another part of Brooklyn and had a super named Ralph who'd say things like "Yous Guys." I tried to write a novel. We went to Paris in 2004--Jill's first time to Europe. We lived in Nolita in an apartment with a fantastic closet but a bed three feet from the ceiling. We moved to Los Angeles in 2005 and put some roots down, moved our careers forward. We embraced the beauty of LA--hikes through the hills, beaches in the fall. We got lost in a bamboo forest on Maui. We started doing weird things like exercising. I became a tennis fan. We went to Greece for two weeks and it was the most beautiful trip I've ever been on. We had Cooper. Jill became a runner--she went from not being able to run for more than a couple minutes to running a half marathon in a little over two hours, eight months later. Among other things.

I could make a hundred different mixes to describe our last ten years together, but I've settled on this one because it feels like time traveling. For every year that we've been married, I've chosen a song or an artist that we, as a unit, played the hell out of in that year. Some of these songs we still play the hell out of, others we haven't listened to in forever. Some years had a lot of contenders, others didn't.

September 25, 2011

I love my iTunes smart playlists, especially my "60s Best" group, which gathers every song in my library made between 1960 and 1969 that I've rated four or five stars. Currently that count sits at 1,280 songs. Of all my smart playlists this one most consistently turns in great mixes. I was playing it yesterday and it spun out this series of gems, including my favorite Donovan song and Hearts & Flowers' "Try for the Sun," which I realized on hearing last night might be one of my top five all-time favorite songs.

Of course I've been listening to my share of R.E.M. this week after the news came out that they'd called it quits after thirty-one years together. Most of my listening has been to their entire discography on shuffle, though this morning I put on Document and played it the whole way through--probably my favorite R.E.M. album next to Automatic for the People. R.E.M. is dead, long live R.E.M.

September 18, 2011

Jon Fine, of the band Bitch Magnet, writes about rock-induced hearing loss for the Atlantic. I'm really glad Bitch Magnet has reunited (temporarily?), though it sounds like they'll only play ATP in Europe and maybe some additional European tour dates. Temporary Residence is reissuing both of their albums in November; they are one of the most overlooked indie bands of the early '90s, so I'm glad to see the albums come back in print. You can find them on Facebook if you want to keep up with tour/reissue updates.

September 17, 2011

In the last month or two Cooper has become a lot more cognizant of the music he is hearing. This may or may not have to do with the fact that we've begun listening to actual children's music in the house with greater regularity. Tom T. Hall's Country Songs for Children is the go-to, thanks to Spotify, though we also have a compilation called Play Music that was assembled by a local place that does music classes, which Coop was attending for a while. That's the album he really goes ape for. The other day I sang him a line from a song from that album and he jumped up, ran into the living room, pointed at the computer and said this, this, this—i.e., I need to hear that song now.

My objections to bona fide kids' music have faded in the last year and a half, though I will say that last night I woke up at 4 am and could not go back to sleep—I had work stress at front of mind, but soundtracked by the lines "Hello boys / It's great to see you once more / Hello girls / I can't wait to hear your voices soar." The two replaying thoughts intertwined was a special kind of torment that kept me up until about 6:30; then I fell asleep before Coop woke up at 7. Luckily it was a weekend so I was able to sleep in a little since my brilliant wife graciously took the wake-up duties.

Anyway, at the same time Cooper is becoming more aware of non-children's music, too. He loves "Barbara Ann" and attempts to sing along with it. (He says "Ba Ba Ba," almost on cue, but not to any melody.) But he does try to sing: if you ask him to sing he'll start saying "Mommy" or "Daddy" in a really high voice in a kind of meandering stairwell of a melody. Occasionally he'll also dance to songs we play around the house; his form of dancing is standing very thoughtfully and then half-squatting up and down a few times.

The highlight of the day, today, was while he was sitting in his high chair eating lunch and I turned on T. Rex's Electric Warrior. "Cosmic Dancer" came on and suddenly Coop just started swaying gently in his seat, as if he were in an arena ready to get his lighter out for the power ballad. It was beautiful.

Good news: a day after I wrote my Talk Talk post, I received an email letting me know that both Laughing Stock and Mark Hollis' solo album are going to be reissued on vinyl on October 11 via Ba Da Bing Records! That'll be my incentive to finally pick up the solo album, which I've yet to hear.